It's not so much because the feisty offensive tackle from Montreal has a purposefully nasty temperament on the football field -- one of the reasons he has been called the fastest rising prospect prior to the NFL draft, which goes May 8-10 in New York City.

Rather, it's because he has been interning this spring in the pediatric emergency room at Montreal Children's Hospital. Duvernay-Tardif is a medical student at McGill University, one of the world's premier public research institutions whose med school is consistently ranked among the top 20 in the world.

After missing the winter semester to live in Knoxville, Tenn., and train for pre-draft workouts in front of NFL talent scouts, the 23-year-old returned to Montreal in mid-March. He entered the fourth-year student rotation in the ER at the children's hospital, and not just as an observer.

"It's treating kids from, like, four months to 17 years old," Duvernay-Tardif said of his first stint (eight shifts in 10 days). "Mostly orthopaedic stuff like fractures, and viral. Some cool stuff with concussions, bleeding and things like that.

"But it's a different approach than treating adults, because a little kid won't talk to you -- he'll only cry -- so you really have to rely on vital signs, fever, those things. But I like it. It's really cool."

Much like his football abilities, Duvernay-Tardif's English was spotty at best when he enrolled at McGill four years ago.

"I really wasn't speaking much English at all," said the francophone

from the South Montreal community of Mont-Saint-Hilaire. "That's why in that first year, I found pre-med really, really hard."

At McGill, there's only a year of pre-med. You have to pass that to qualify for full med-school studies thereafter.

So, really, if the prospect of doing that in an unfamiliar language at Canada's traditionally top-ranked university didn't faze him, or ultimately stumble him, then how daunting can a pool of blood be?

Duvernay-Tardif speaks fluent English now, and not with as heavy an accent as you'd expect from a francophone only four years into this language.

As a youngster, Duvernay-Tardif played soccer and basketball, and often went cross-country skiing during those long Quebec winters. He never played football for his high school. Instead he got his start in the sport at age 15 in the Montreal equivalent of a Pop Warner league.

After high school he was a defensive lineman for three years at Collège André-Grasset in CEGEP -- a French acronym for the post-secondary level of education in Quebec that functions as a segue, of sorts, between high school and university.

CEGEP football occasionally produces top-level NCAA players, such as Michigan running back Tim Biakabutuka in the 1990s and centre Philip Blake at Baylor from 2010-12.

After CEGEP, it wasn't until Duvernay-Tardif completed his freshman year at McGill that he switched from D-line to offensive tackle.

"We played field and boundary in my first two years on offence, so I was playing both left and right tackle," he said. "Last year we switched to straight left and right, and I was left tackle."

It was after the 2012 season that Duvernay-Tardif became convinced he should delay his plan to become a professional sports doctor so he could try to become a professional sports participant.

His frame -- 6-foot-5¼ and 315 pounds -- and athleticism for such a big man are highly sought-after attributes in the NFL. But Duvernay-Tardif had to upgrade his strength.

Before winter 2013 he could bench press only 20 reps of 225 pounds. He hit the gym hard for the next five months and, by late spring, could bench 35 reps. He can now do as many as 40.

At his McGill pro day for NFL and CFL scouts in late March, Duvernay-Tardif did 34 reps. Only six of 50 offensive linemen benched more at the NFL scouting combine in February.

In other combine-compliant speed and athleticism drills, Duvernay-Tardif similarly rated at or near the top of this year's entire NFL offensive-linemen rookie class.

Talent evaluators from nine NFL teams attended his pro day, and chatted him up afterward.

"What they were saying is that I'm a good athlete and I move super well for my weight," Duvernay-Tardif said. "For sure my technique is not perfect because it's only been three years that I'm playing O-line.

"The big question mark for them is just the level of competition I played against."

Indeed, can an offensive linemen from Canadian university football, who because of his demanding med-school studies practised only once a week last season, really be selected as high as the third or fourth round as many draftniks are now predicting?

It appears so.

"I don't know that there's anybody that's too raw," Arizona Cardinals general manager Steve Keim told QMI Agency at the NFL annual meeting. "As long as you have the skill set, and you have the desire and the passion, you certainly have a chance to develop into a real player."

Duvernay-Tardif showed off such desire in January during week-long practices prior to the East-West Shrine Game, a U.S. college all-star showcase for departing seniors.

"Nobody knew me," he said. "So my goal was really to get scouts to know me better. My goal was just to be super aggressive off the ball and finish my blocks and show my athleticism. I think that's what I did."

Scouts say Duvernay-Tardif possesses an especially nasty disposition on the football field. And for an offensive tackle, that's quite a good thing. But he disowns the 'mean' label.

"I think my teammates and my coaches would say that I'm really aggressive on the field and I try to finish my opponent, and blah-blah-blah," he said. "But, honestly, I just try to go there and play 100% and I don't try to be mean. I just try to do my job until the whistle.

"If I can get into the head of my opponent, that's good. One way to do that is to play really, really aggressively. If I can finish every block with a pancake, I'm going to do it every time. That's my mentality. At the same time, I'm respectful. I'm not going for a cheap shot."

Seven NFL teams flew in Duvernay-Tardif this month for an official pre-draft visit ahead of Sunday's deadline: Green Bay, Kansas City, Miami, Arizona, Seattle, Buffalo and San Francisco. Two others -- Cleveland and Indianapolis -- tried but couldn't swing it. The Philadelphia Eagles privately worked out Duvernay-Tardif in Montreal.

Amid all that travel and prep, he squeezed in another ER rotation at the hospital.

Are teams concerned Duvernay-Tardif might be more focused on a career in medicine than in football?

"I think it's a plus," he said. "Honestly, they're surprised I'm in full med school. But at the same time it shows them that you're a smart guy, you're coachable and you're able to manage your time."

Duvernay-Tardif would be on track to graduate from McGill in June 2015 if he hadn't interrupted his studies this year to pursue his NFL dream.

As it is, if he makes it in the NFL he thinks he can study enough in off-seasons to graduate in 2016 or 2017.

Then you can call him Dr. Duvernay-Tardif.

If the NFL does not work out, he is certain to land in the CFL. That league's scouting bureau ranks him the No. 1 prospect for the May 13 CFL draft.

Whenever and wherever Duvernay-Tardif's football playing career concludes, he aims to not only become a general sports doctor -- "I like to work with athletes" -- but to also keep taking shifts in emergency rooms.

"I can do both," he said with certainty.

Yes, he can.

WHAT EXPERTS ARE SAYING

Here's what NFL talent evaluators are saying about former McGill University offensive tackle Laurent Duvernay-Tardif:

"He's obviously got a lot of talent … I go back to the days of Mike Schad coming out of the Canadian ranks and he went in the first round. You're looking probably at a third- or fourth-round pick here … But you've got to develop him. You're not going to get much (out of him) as a rookie."

-- Mel Kiper Jr., ESPN

"A very interesting prospect. He's got some size -- very intriguing … Rare combo (of size and speed). So we want to do our due diligence and make sure, as close as he is to us, that we get this guy right."

-- Buffalo Bills GM Doug Whaley

"You can teach a player to play the game of football -- whether it's technique or angles or that sort of thing. You can't teach them to be bigger, stronger or faster. And when you have the type of tools that he has, he's a guy that people get excited about. (His intelligence) is the other thing that you have to like. You have to like the guy's work ethic, and then the commitment that he has shown to the medical profession. I think he's certainly going to be on several teams' radars."

-- Arizona Cardinals GM Steve Keim

"He's a big, big guy who's played a lot of tackle, and I think he looks better moving inside as a guard. I know he's been working out with a former NFL offensive lineman named Bruce Wilkerson who's tried to help him with quickness, trying to get better in movement."